Author's Note: This is my first submission to this - or any - site. Reviews are greatly appreciated, but please... be gentle. This one's going to be AU, and probably long. BTW, for anyone that's curious, SGVern is my brother. This story starts two years before the events chronicled in the movie. This story begins in January, 1994.
Stargate SG-1: Infinities
By TheGateNerd
Hello. My name is Tim McFadden. At the time this little tale begins, I haven't quite reached my 18th birthday and I am the University of Oregon's youngest graduate, with degrees in both computer science and physics. My graduation ceremony had ended just hours before my first job offer came in. I got a call from a Dr. Catherine Langford, a prominent astrophysicist whose work I'd heard of during my studies. She asked if I was interested in participating in a program that would rapidly expand the bounds of our knowledge in a number of scientific disciplines. She said that she wasn't able to provide me with any specific details over the phone, due to the extremely high classification level the project was operating under. If I accepted the position, however, all details of the project would be explained to me upon my arrival.
Given that anything of a highly classified nature indicated sure military involvement, and military involvement meant a very decent paycheck, I immediately accepted Dr. Langford's offer of a position as assistant astrophysicist and computer programmer on the project.
A week later, I had checked myself into a hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I'd found out from the locals that it took about half an hour to drive to Cheyenne Mountain from downtown, so I left the hotel at about 7:15 in the morning to ensure that I would arrive early.
Just under thirty minutes later, I pulled up to the guarded entrance of the mountain complex. A guard stopped me and I identified myself. The guard informed his partner and I waited. And waited some more. I glanced at the clock on my dashboard and mentally swore. I was going to be late for my first day at work. Finally, the guard came out, and gave me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry for the delay, Mr. McFadden, but we had to make sure that you were, in fact, expected to be here," he explained.
I flashed him a rueful smile. "That's all right, ah," I glanced at his uniform, "Sergeant. I've heard that this is a pretty high-security place, so I suppose precautionary measures are in order." I looked at the dashboard clock and grimaced. Noticing my wince, he gave me a sympathetic grin. "Don't worry, sir," he offered, "my partner's on the phone with General West now, letting him know that the delay is our fault."
"Thanks," I replied gratefully, while miming wiping nervous sweat from my forehead. The sergeant flashed a grin at me and raised the gate arm and I drove through. A few minutes later, as I got to the base entrance, more guards led me through the process of getting my identification badge, a decent-sized stack of nondisclosure and other there-will-be-grave-consequences-if-you-violate-national-security forms. About midway through wading through the stack, an older, gray-haired woman exited the elevator.
She walked over to the table where I was scrawling signatures on the various forms and held out her hand. "Hello. Mr. McFadden, I presume?"
I nodded and took her hand in a firm grip. "That would be me. I'm sorry about being -"
The woman waved away my apology before it could really even get started. "It's all right, Mr. McFadden. It's actually my fault it took so long for security up here to clear you. I was on the phone with your immediate supervisor when you got here. It turns out that she's not going to be here until this afternoon, due to an…accident that she had last night." The pause before she said accident told me that it probably hadn't been one, but since I was new here, I decided to let it pass. The woman looked at me ruefully. "Where are my manners? I haven't even introduced myself yet. I'm Dr. Catherine Langford, the head of the researchers here on the project."
Oh, so this was the prominent astrophysicist that had managed to persuade me to accept a job without really knowing what it was about? I took a closer look at her. She wasn't much taller than I was, but I could tell that there was a certain presence about her. "Nice to meet you, doctor." I thought for a minute, then decided that letting my supervisor's so-called accident pass without question probably wasn't such a good idea after all. "I have a question, if you don't mind?" Dr. Langford nodded for me to continue. "Is my supervisor's 'accident,'" and I made quoting motions at this, "going to be an ongoing occurrence, or has it been dealt with?"
Dr. Langford sighed. "I'm afraid I can't tell you anything further. Perhaps, once you've come to know Captain Carter a bit better, she'll tell you herself." Langford gave me a measuring look, then continued. "Aside from your college records, I don't know you that well myself. I have a feeling that we'll get along quite well, and I think you and Captain Carter will probably wind up being very good friends, as well as a strong working relationship."
By the time she'd finished her statement, I'd finished signing all of the forms I needed to deal with. I told Dr. Langford that I hoped we'd get along too as we walked towards the elevator to make our way into the base. As the elevator doors closed, I started wondering what I'd gotten myself into.
Author's End Note: So... this is the first chapter. Next chapter, Sam and Tim meet. Thanks to Stephanie, aka sgk203, for betaing this for me.